Archive for November 2011

Writing gods willing and the creek don’t rise, I will pass 120K words on the current ms. tomorrow. This is the novel that saner people persuaded me to split a few weeks ago: the one that I had originally titled War-Lord of the Gods, which will now become two novels, because this story turned out to be so much longer than expected. The titles of these newly-separate novels keep shifting in my mind, because War-Lord of the Gods is probably not quite right for either of them. One of them will probably wind up going to press as The Heart of the Darkness. It’s possible the other will become The Lord of the Abyss. But more on that dilemma anon.

Meanwhile, I’m coming up to the halfway point, what will henceforth be known as the book break, of two of the three threads I’m writing in these two novels. At this point I’m a little more than two chapters from the end of the first two threads in this (second) novel–with nothing written on the other thread. And yes, you read that right, above. I’m staring down 120K words. Good thing saner people persuaded me to split this novel.

For better or worse, I’m now writing two novels simultaneously: when I finish these two threads I’m working on in Novel #2, I will jump right into developing these same two threads in Novel #3. Because, absent the limitations of print publishing, Novels 2 and 3 would be one book, and that’s still how they work in my head. And I must write sequentially.

Of course, absent the limitations of print publishing, all three of these novels (The Shadow of the Sun being the first) would be one book. It would be 800K words long. How big a surprise can that be? My sentences go on like normal people’s paragraphs.

But I digress, as usual.

I am pleased by the way this novel is unfolding. It’s deeper and darker than Shadow, and because it’s the second of a series it doesn’t have the longish set-up period of the first. Things go absolutely to hell within the first twenty pages. And I hope that most people will be surprised by most of it.